It's okay to like vinyl

Here's a nice if somewhat over-lengthy piece about why people prefer antiquated technologies like vinyl records instead of digital media. The main point seems to be quite simple :

Work, effort, meaning – these ideas are all interconnected for users and consumers of analogue technology. Whereas work is often seen as a means to an end, from earning a living to exercising, "analoguers" get a buzz out of the processes of setting things up, getting things right, trial and error, and building up skills. This "love of the process" was backed up by another photographer, Dan, during a Zoom discussion held amid one of the Covid lockdowns :

"When I'm serious, I don't want to get distracted by what [image] I'm going to end up with. Even with instant photography, I know I'm going to see the shot soon – just not now. I love everything up until pressing the shutter. I love searching for the frame, I like the output, but the whole process is important."

This makes a lot of sense to me, and also echoes both Chris Hatfield and Tim Peake's books in which they say that as an astronaut, you have to enjoy the training. You can't make it all about the big payoff of going to space because that might never happen, and is only a very small part of the end result. As for vinyl records, I think enjoying them because they offer a "richer sound" is frankly silly, but if you actually prefer the slightly slower process of retrieving a disc, putting the needle on the record and pressing a big chunky mechanical button... I'm not going to stop you. In fact I completely sympathise with the need for tactile sensation even in this very limited case. Physical contact gives a feeling of realness you'll never get from playing a digital file. It's the difference between porn and sex, I suppose...

Ahem. Anyway it's got sod-all to do with the sound quality, so just stop pretending that it does. I'm more inclined to the argument that actually it's the poorer sound quality that has value here :

"Half of what you do trying to make music is like a happy accident that ends up sounding better than what you intended. If the machine doesn't do exactly what you thought it was going to do, or goes a bit out of tune, it is all part of the process. You get a little bit of randomness in it, and that randomness can add to what you are trying to achieve."

Similarly, many of Mick Rock's legendary music photographs are technically very grainy because he was shooting in low light and "pushing" the film to its limits, but as a result, they have a painterly feel that has enhanced their appeal and power.

In a sense, while analogue users feel they have greater control over their creativity, this occurs through surrendering to the demands of one's device – along the lines of German electronic legends Kraftwerk's menschmaschine (Man-Machine) philosophy. This runs contrary to the promise of most consumer-driven innovation: functional superiority and increased ease of use.

Again this makes a lot of sense to me. Having to deal with limitations and errors forces you to think a little bit, to really get creative : if you have absolute control then it all becomes a bit overwhelming, whereas if things are more restricted, perhaps it's a bit easier to accept these limitations which are not of your own making. And I suggest that people want these authentic imperfections. Sure, you could recreate it all with digital, but this wouldn't be the same as a genuine accident. We like feeling that we're not totally in control of the process.

The process of slowing it all down also adds value. As a follow-up to a post on my ReMarkable, I really like this tablet. It's just as indispensable six months later as it was on day one. Having to slow down a bit to write, with it more difficult (but not impossible) to undo, forces me to think more carefully. It also helps keep things a bit shorter. And of course, it's got that vital tactile sensation that's quite different, though not necessarily better, than a boring old clunky keyboard* (I do still enjoy also typing on a keyboard). Analogue writing has a different, more deliberate flavour to it than typing. All that being true :

* It's also really useful as a storage device for the long interesting pieces I find and don't want to forget.

Yet none of the people we've interviewed are analogue purists. These vinyl lovers mostly also have Spotify lists; film photographers will sometimes take out their phone to capture material quickly; and modular synth fans often have tablets full of apps to replicate sounds on the go.

Well, sometimes the process matters and sometimes it doesn't. As in the solarigraphy conference I attended/co-organised last year : sometimes people take photographs as a means of self-expression but not for the sake of art. I take photos even of famous landmarks because I want to remember things as I saw it, what the weather was like, were their crowds of tourists or was it empty, under construction, etc. I want to capture my experience, not necessarily evoke any emotions. It matters to me because it's mine.

I suggest we all sometimes want to either enjoy the process or the result, and we value both differently at different times. Sometimes we want to actually create things and enjoy the process, and that act of self-expression by doing things the hard way has value. But sometimes we just want the end result, and that's perfectly fine too. AI tools are in that sense a democratisation of creativity, taking the hard work out of our hands : if you want to see a pug on the Moon and just think that would be amusing in itself, and don't want to attend a six-month painting course to get good enough to produce the end result... that's fine ! If you want to read a silly story about said pug fighting Moon monsters, and don't want it hand-crafted but just value the output, that's fine too. And of course if you want to do it the hard way, nobody should have a problem with that either.

This has consequences everywhere. At work I'm currently in the process of preparing a couple of papers on visual source extraction. A great many people don't want to have to do this, and I quite understand that. Finding every galaxy in a large data set is inevitably a slow and sometimes tedious process regardless of how good the inspection tools are. But for me it's the main enjoyable part of the whole procedure. I like having to carefully sift through the data, clicking when I see a source, adjusting the region used for measurements, comparing this rawest of data with optical images... it's a relaxing and therapeutic process, up to a point. It enriches the whole experience, gives it meaning, and is anyway provably better than most automatic techniques. But I don't mind at all that other people prefer to avoid this and would rather focus their energies on understanding the final catalogues – I only object to anyone saying that visual source extraction isn't a good idea, because it demonstrably is.

Well, there we are. From astronauts to vinyl-loving pretentious hipsters, to astronomers hunting galaxies and doing calculations with circular slide rules, humans love touching things and literally feeling a connection to what they're doing. We value the process and we value the output. And it's all fine... it just won't stop me making fun of vinyl-loving hipsters. Thank goodness cassette tapes don't seem to be making a comeback though, because that would be a different conversation.